Introduction
“The past has no power to stop you from being present now. Only your grievance about the past can do that. What is grievance? The baggage of old thought and emotion.”
– Anonymous
When we think about baggage, what do we usually think about? The trauma? The hope at the time? The lies we’ve experienced? The moments of despair? Questions why we did it? The point is, as I’m sure you can see, this list can go on forever.
When we think about it, every time we make decisions, especially for relationships, it’s easier for us to find an answer if we have some familiarity with it. It’s the best way for us to comprehend a situation. The issue with this is if that experience was negative, we are going to assume the present situation will have the same result.
For example, this new friend/partner lied about watering their plant the other day. Now as an over-thinker, you will remember the other people in your life who did the same thing. If that person treated you poorly, you’re first going to assume this new person might be the same.
Does their doing mean they will treat you poorly? Of course not. Everybody is different in their way. Maybe that day, that person was too busy with work & forgot to do it. As silly as it sounds, they possibly didn’t want you to think they were irresponsible since they tried to impress you. So they’ve said they watered it.
Emotional baggage will always get the best of us when encountering specific situations because it can trigger past unhealed trauma.
Let’s look at a few symptoms that you possibly still have unhealed trauma or emotional baggage.
Lack Of Trust
Let’s start with the easiest one in the group. You know it, I know it, the birds in the air know it. Trust, as we know it, is the biggest concern in a relationship, especially if you come from a traumatic/toxic past.
If we have constantly been with people who lied on a regular basis, we would see it as the norm in a relationship. To the point where when you meet someone new & they’ve been honest the whole time, you will think it’s too good to be true. Then you’ll start to self-sabotage the relationship. Speaking of which….
Self-Sabotage
This one usually happens when you’ve been constantly hurt and find something new. When I say something newer, I mean entering into a healthy relationship. Your brain can’t comprehend or understand what’s happening because past experiences never gave you that opportunity.
You start creating bigger walls, distancing yourself, and constantly second-guessing whenever your partner tells you something. This type of emotional baggage is unfair to the new partner who’s trying to introduce you to a new life.
Constantly Dating
Probably wondering how this makes sense… “If I have emotional baggage, getting into relationships or dating something should be hard.” Not at all; as humans, we are giant social creatures. We love attention and affection. Sometimes it gets to the point where it can be negative attention and affection. The feeling of being wanted is a big drug nowadays.
Sometimes we do the “constant dating” technique to try and fill that void of being alone. We rather suffer and deal with someone that shows little affection to fulfill that need to be wanted.
Fear/Paranoia
Naturally, we don’t like losing, but losing someone you cared about it? It is going to hit home. It hurts more when you give it 110% to ensure the relationship lasts. The pain becomes even more intense when you know deep down it should have ended before. You want to believe in the person & that they will change.
So internally, we develop attachment issues and will want constant reinsurance to ensure we know the relationship is in good standing. Be careful of doing this. Doing this can put unfair pressure on the new partner and undermine their enjoyment of being with you.
Avoidance of Past Trauma
What’s the best way to avoid dealing with your emotional baggage? Keeping yourself occupied, of course. Sometimes we look back and wonder why we made those decisions then. As we know as well, naturally, we like to avoid taking accountability for past actions. Especially ones that caused a lot of suffering.
To our knowledge now, we refuse to admit that we made a poor choice then. The pattern will continue when we don’t acknowledge this and try to avoid accountability. You’ll wonder why this keeps happening, but for it to end, it starts with yourself.
Conclusion
All great spirituality is about what we do with our pain. If we do not transform our pain, we will transmit it to those around us.
– Richard Rohr
Yeshiva University professor Sabrina Romanoff describes emotional baggage: “The term “emotional baggage” refers to unfinished emotional issues, stressors, pain, and difficulties we’ve experienced that continue to take up space in our minds and affect our present relationships.”
So I guess we are looking for the answer to this. To make a long story short, the short answer is it starts with you. If it’s their true nature, you can’t blame those past partners for behaving the way they acted. They are just themselves. The issue is you had a different vision of them that you hoped they would blossom into. As I said in previous posts, you can’t change a person who doesn’t want to change themselves.
The emotional baggage burden can be steep. Not saying this is some walk-in-the-park type of recovery. The road to recovery and achieving peak emotional intelligence will take some time. If you do not deal with the trauma or baggage that’s in your heart and head, you won’t become healthy.
Go to the gym, start taking vitamins, and drink more water. You can start with some basic habits that can soon turn intermediate, like meditation. When you start to become more emotionally healthy, you’ll see the difference in yourself. You will stop forcing things, start trusting in the right people, create healthy boundaries and become more acceptable of being alone than deal with toxicity. Letting go of toxic people will become easier or even avoiding them altogether.
Just have to remember patience is key, more imporantly patience with yourself. Once you give yourself some time to grow and emotionally mature during the process, finding the right people to be around will become easier. When you start creating a healthy routine, people will want to naviagte towards you and your positive energy.
Feel free to comment below on your thought about today’s topic!!